Herder

Philosophy and Anthropology

Edited by Anik Waldow and Nigel DeSouza

Offers an account of the main features of Herder's philosophical anthropology

Creates interdisciplinary links between philosophy and anthropology

Herder

Philosophy and Anthropology

Edited by Anik Waldow and Nigel DeSouza

Description

J. G. Herder is enjoying a renaissance in philosophy and related disciplines and yet there are, as yet, few books on him. This unprecedented collection fills a large gap in the secondary literature, highlighting the genuinely innovative and distinctive nature of Herder's philosophy. Not only does Herder offer highly original answers to important philosophical questions, such as the mind-body problem and the role of sensibility in cognition and ethics, he also opens up rich resources for thinking about philosophy itself and connections to other fields in the humanities and social sciences. Herder: Philosophy and Anthropology brings together a set of original essays that centre on the question at the heart of Herder's philosophical thought: How can philosophy enable an understanding of the human being not simply rationalistically as an intellectual and moral agent, but also as a creature of nature who is fundamentally marked by an affective openness and responsiveness to the world and other persons.

The first part of the volume examines the various dimensions of Herder's philosophical understanding of human nature through which he sought methodologically to delineate a genuinely anthropological philosophy. The second part then examines further aspects of this understanding of human nature and what emerges from it: the human-animal distinction; how human life evolves over space and time on the basis of a natural order; the fundamentally hermeneutic dimension to human existence; and the interrelatedness of language, history, religion, and culture.

Herder

Philosophy and Anthropology

Edited by Anik Waldow and Nigel DeSouza

Table of Contents

Introduction, Anik Waldow and Nigel DeSouzaPart I: Towards a New Philosophy: Philosophy as Anthropology 1. Philosophy as Anthropology, An Interview with Charles Taylor2. Anthropology and the Critique of Metaphysics in the Early Herder, Marion Heinz3. The Metaphysical and Epistemological Foundations of Herder s Philosophical Anthropology, Nigel DeSouza4. Herder: Physiology and Philosophical Anthropology, Stephanie Buchenau5. The Role of Aesthetics in Herder s Anthropology, Stephen Gaukroger6. Understanding as Explanation: The Significance of Herder s and Goethe s Science of Describing, Dalia NassarPart II The Human Animal: Nature, Language, History, Culture 7. Herder between Reimarus and Tetens: The Problem of an Animal-Human Boundary, John Zammito8. Between History and Nature: Herder s Human Being and the Naturalisation of Reason, Anik Waldow9. Human Nature and Human Science: Herder and the Anthropological Turn in Hermeneutics, Kristin Gjesdal10. Herder s Religious Anthropology in His Later Writings, Johannes Schmidt11. Individualism and Universalism in Herder s Conception of the Philosophy of History, Martin Bollacher12. Herder and Human Rights, Michael N. Forster13. Herder and the Jewish Question, Frederick C. Beiser

Herder

Philosophy and Anthropology

Edited by Anik Waldow and Nigel DeSouza

Author Information

Anik Waldow is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Sydney. She mainly works in early modern philosophy and has published widely on the moral and cognitive function of sympathy, early modern theories of personal identity, scepticism and associationist theories of thought and language, and the influence of artifice and nature in the enlightenment debate. She is the author of the book David Hume and the Problem of Other Minds (Continuum, 2009), and co-edited Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy: Nature and Norms in Thought (Springer, 2013)

Nigel DeSouza is assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa. He works on the philosophy of Herder, early modern philosophy, and on contemporary ethics. He has published articles on Herder's metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and moral philosophy, as well as on the foundations of ethical agency. His articles have appeared in The British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Intellectual History Review, Herder Yearbook, and Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.

Herder

Philosophy and Anthropology

Edited by Anik Waldow and Nigel DeSouza

Reviews and Awards

"This collection does much of what one would like a collection of essays to do. First, and importantly, it provides a nice, representative cross-section of Herder scholarship today, including pieces by established scholars whose work initiated and promoted philosophical scholarship on Herder -- such as Taylor, Heinz, Bollacher, Zammito, Forster, and Beiser -- as well as contributions from newer scholars (or scholars newer to Herder). It correspondingly treats many central themes in Herder's philosophical corpus, and does so from differing perspectives ... It not only represents the -- encouragingly flourishing -- state of scholarship on Herder, as noted, but also contributes fruitfully to that discussion, both in providing informative historical contextualization of Herder's views (Herder was a thinker deeply engaged with the thought of his contemporaries) and in raising interesting philosophical and interpretive questions."--Rachel Zuckert, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews